With this weekend being an off weekend, thought it’d be a good chance for some overall updates:

• After about 4,000 miles and 60 runs of autocross, the car is averaging about 34mpg – not bad.
• Best tank was 38.7mpg, which includes autocross – and it was doing at least 43mpg before the event went on the tank
• Car is overall running great with no issues to speak of. Running very smoothly on Pennzoil Ultra 5w30 and shifting well with the Amsoil MTF 75w90, smoother than stock on both
• FCM Suspension has broken in nicely, and IMO rides well on the street.
• After ~60 runs of autox and ~1300miles of street driving, the tires are at about 4 and 5mm tread depth and 2.5-3.0mm from the wear bars for the fronts and rears respectively
• According to Tire Rack, the tires start at about 6.35mm – so I’ve taken off about 1.5-2.5mm off of them through 60 runs, with a minimum 2.5mm more to go.

I had a moment of panic regarding the tire wear, given that it’s been less than one full month of autox and about 5 events, until I realized that, by run count, this year has been heavily front loaded. So, while it’s true that I’ve eaten through a ton of tire in a very short period of time, by run count, I won’t even get close to another 60 runs until the end of June, by reasonable estimation. If the tires last me 120 runs or so, I will be more than fine – as I’m expecting about 200 runs total for the season. If I play it right, I may even have some tire left to burn before the start of next year.

One thing I will have to do, which I forgot to consider, is that I will have to be flipping my tires this year – right tires to left wheels, and vice versa. I’ve got a good amount of shoulder wear on the tires right now so I’d like to avoid cording them. Thankfully, SPS has me covered there – as they’ll be taking care of all my wheel/tire/service needs for the car. Now’s probably not a bad time to flip them, so I’ll go ahead and do that.

Regarding eLSD, I’m happy to report it’s been very unintrusive – I’ve hardly noticed it actually. This was one of my biggest concerns/question marks when I was optioning the car, and I really went back and forth with it for quite some time. I don’t know exactly how much it’s doing as far as wheelspin is concerned, but I can say I haven’t noticed any outrageous one-tire fires thus far this season – so I think it’s working. Regardless, for me, it’s more important that it’s not doing anything weird or trying to totally brake me as I try to accelerate. I also haven’t noticed any big mechanical lsd-like help accelerating through corners, which is fine. So, ultimately, it looks like it’s working fine overall, and perhaps helping a little as far as tire wear goes by not letting the inside wheel completely spin.

4/21/2014 update:

After having SPS rotate the tires, they commented that I may even have 2/3rds life left on these tires! Given the 60 runs so far, 30-40 on concrete, 120 more runs would be spectacular. Even 100 more runs at this point I’d be thrilled with. 90-100 runs would bring me right up to Nationals, may not be a terrible idea to drive on scrubbed-in new tires there. Including nats, that only puts me at 50 runs to the end of the year – giving me plenty of tire to start with for next year!